Drarkwave, a gothic genre that set pop ablaze, “the body was the drums, the brain was the synthesize.”
DrA synth-driven, nihilistic music that sprang from the darkest recesses of the 80s underground is now receiving billions of streams. The rationale behind its demise is laid out by its architects, both past and present.
DrConsider the song “I Like the Way You Kiss Me” by Artemas, whose real name is Artemas Diamandis and who is of Cypriot and British descent. Seen prominently on the charts alongside Sabrina Carpenter, Kendrick Lamar, and the multitude of fervently strung acoustic guitars is the two-minute blast of throbbing, icy synth-pop that portrays an objectified and emotionally distant love connection. “We finished the song in three hours, I uploaded it the following day, and then everything went out of hand,” he explains. It soared to the top of multiple nations upon its debut in March and has racked up over half a billion streams on Spotify alone—among many more like it.
Various artists from the darkwave genre, including Artemas, Mareux, Boy Harsher, Ekkstacy, ThxSoMch, Twin Tribes, the KVB, Molchat Doma, and Pastel Ghost, as well as more established acts like Depeche Mode and the Cure, have been compiled into an official Spotify playlist. Despite its undeniable status as a globally popular genre right now, no one can agree on what it is or if they belong to it.
DrDiamandis concurs. “Some part of me longs for a distinct tone,” the 24-year-old reveals. Because our preferences are so dispersed, it’s incredibly difficult for performers from my generation to have it, but all my favorite acts from the past do. We have an infinite supply of music and playlists instead of scenery. Ekkstacy, whose real name is Khyree Zienty, claims, “I’ve never been good at putting a name on my music.” It’s challenging to do without coming across as rude.
Thankfully, some useful background information is available in the form of a new 60-track compilation album titled No Songs Tomorrow: Darkwave, Ethereal Rock and Coldwave 1981–1990. Darkwave has always been a nebulous genre, as this compilation of bands like Twice a Man, In the Nursery, Dead Can Dance, Dead Can Dance, Cocteau Twins, and the Cure demonstrates. In its most basic form, it’s a study in contrasts: starting with an upbeat new wave and reversing it into something more minor note, reflective, estranged, and, well, dark.
Clan of Xymox’s 1985 self-titled album on 4AD provides a blueprint for music that is simultaneously moody and melancholic and subtly joyful and dancefloor-ready; it is the band that best exemplifies darkwave in its original hybrid form. According to band member Ronny Moorings, “John Peel declared we were the pioneers of darkwave.” Moorings has seen that their work has been incorporated into the music of contemporary groups through remixes by Twin Tribes and covers by She Past Away. “Darkwave is hot right now,” he remarks. “Younger bands always claim we were an influence on them, but I find that their music does the same for me – it’s a never-ending loop.”
DrAnother 80s artist featured on No Songs Tomorrow was the all-female German band Malaria!, which used synths and hooks to amplify the more aggressive aspects of post-punk. “The brain and the body have always fascinated me,” Gudrun Gut, a member of the band, explains. “The brain was like a synthesiser, and the body was like the drums.” A lot of people have taken an interest in her former band, according to Gut. According to her, “Malaria! is referenced a lot” by young producers and singers, particularly women. “We set a good example.”
A rejection of mainstream music and normal living was the root of Gut and Moorings’ music. While he was performing in derelict Dutch factories, Moorings lived in squats, one of which burned down. It was a time when “we could do whatever we wanted” since the state was free, he remembers thinking back. Gut claims that the “wild, extreme yet grey” atmosphere of West Berlin—a neighborhood filled with “art lovers and partiers”—reflected in her music. Even in their early form, Gut was a member of Einstürzende Neubauten, a band that scorned the era’s pretentiousness with a vengeance—they would steal equipment from construction sites, record music beneath highways, and even cut holes in the walls of concert venues.
DrIt is not easy to trace the direct line from the music of the 1980s to the current generation of Gen Z musicians. Diamandis and De Filippis both say that the avant-electro of bands like Crystal Castles and the shimmering neon pop of the Weeknd were more influential than Nirvana, grunge, and Soundcloud rap. The main reason Diamandis associates 80s artists with his music is because, according to his mom, he sounded like them, therefore he went back and explored.
In the midst of this new upsurge, long-running acts like the KVB and Boy Harsher have had exponential increases in both their streaming numbers and live crowds. The impact of the club is the biggest differentiator among newly formed bands, says Augustus Muller, half of Boy Harsher. Particularly in the United States, club culture is considerably more common. All we had was a 707 drum machine hooked up to a Boss distortion pedal and one dude headbanging at the first raves we played, which were all do-it-yourself venues with more live shows than DJs. Berlin is a household brand now, and there are plenty of real clubs with good sound systems. The way people see their music playing has a significant effect on the sound, and it’s bound to change. These days, we’re focusing more on writing for the club and less on the old North Philadelphia chemical factory.
The rise of “music production becoming more democratic with digital audio workstations and cheaper synths,” according to KVB’s Kat Day, has been beneficial. All things considered, the darkwave scene is essentially do-it-yourself. With the help of the internet, these songs, which were composed and recorded in a bedroom, have the ability to transcend borders.a
Aside from Spotify’s support, it seems like this is fan-driven and organic. Artists have developed fan bases without resorting to costly studio recordings or public relations campaigns, according to Day. Additionally, she expresses curiosity in whether younger audiences are drawn to music that is “not pushed by the masses or that is overly commercialized,” as she puts it. “The songs embody a lo-fi aesthetic, lack excessive polish, and serve as a possible remedy to the immaculate social media environments that our generation was raised in.”
For today’s youth musicians, this appears to hit close to home. A million streams per day? “I was just doing this in my bedroom and then I’m getting a million streams per day,” De Filippis adds. “I mean, how is this even happening?” Everything is so digital and tidy, and I guess that’s why people are drawn to it. When things are a bit dirty, I prefer them that way.
Throw in the wildcard era of TikTok and even more songs are seemingly exploding from nowhere. Back in 2015, Mareux covered the Cure song the Perfect Girl, but it would take six years for it to blow up on social media after people started placing the song over cuts from the film American Psycho. Similarly, the Belarus outfit Molchat Doma, signed to the relatively cult underground label Sacred Bones, got huge when their music began to accompany a TikTok fashion challenge, as well as numerous Soviet-era videos of brutalist architecture and the like. Soon the brooding sound of their track Sudno (Boris Ryzhy) was being heard by hundreds of millions of people.
While TikTok trends come and go, the music appears to be lasting. “People say our music resonates with them because of its honesty and sincerity,” says Raman Kamahortsau of Molchat Doma. “In our songs, we convey the dark side of a person – the depressive, sad, and anxious moments.”
That plays out in Artemas’s I Like the Way You Kiss Me, whose lovey-dovey title is rather undermined by its brutally honest chorus: “Not tryna be romantic, I’ll hit it from the back, just so you don’t get attached.” Diamandis says this unabashed, unpolished lyricism is resonating. “I would never say some of the stuff in conversation in real life that I sing in my songs,” he says. “But there’s something about singing it in a falsetto over a hard beat that’s quite freeing. Once people know that I don’t take myself too seriously, and maybe know more embarrassing things about me, I just find it much easier to relax and breathe.” De Filippis says his tracks are “a way for me to make darker, more melancholy music that I can still move around to while still being true to myself”.
Whatever the appeal of darkwave, millions of fans have gathered under its broad umbrella. Diamandis speaks to me in the middle of his first ever tour, and the next one booked for later in the year is in venues quadruple the size. “Before this I’d only played shows to 20 people in a room,” he says. “I guess that’s just how things move with virality these days – once people decide that they want something, that’s it.”
No Songs Tomorrow: Darkwave, Ethereal Rock and Coldwave 1981-1990 is out now on Cherry Red Records
